Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a system and method for morphing a design element which precisely and efficiently morphs a design element within a data file to new target parameters by changing its general proportions, dimensions or shape.
Description of the Related Art
Any discussion of the related art throughout the specification should in no way be considered as an admission that such related art is widely known or forms part of common general knowledge in the field.
Computer-aided-design (CAD) software programs are commonly used across a wide range of industries for the design of parts, buildings, devices, assemblies, etc. Often, a new design needed to be entered into such a CAD software program will in some manners be related to a previous design which has already been entered into such a program, with the exception of geometrical changes such as dimensions and proportions.
In the past, individuals wishing to create such new designs have either been forced to start a new drawing from scratch, thus negating any usefulness of the previous, related design, or use the control polygon (i.e. control net) attached to each surface of the CAD design element to morph the surface. The latter method merely approximates the morphing of the geometry and will often not allow the user to achieve a high degree of precision with respect to matching target requirements for the new drawing. In areas such as building design or machining parts, such a low degree of precision can be extremely costly.
Control polygon morphing as known in the prior art often results in gaps between adjacent surfaces, which will require the user to manually fill in the gaps and make other adjustments to complete the transition of the drawing to meet the target requirements. Further, users are forced to morph a single surface at a time which can be extremely time consuming and is prone to error, thus reducing precision. Finally, prior art systems do not synchronize different types of geometric data such as CAD, CAE, STL and other visualization data corresponding to a part of assembly.
Because of the inherent problems with the related art, there is a need for a new and improved system and method for precisely and efficiently morphing the shape of a design or alternately the CAD data to new target requirements by changing the general proportions, dimensions or shape of the existing design.